SOAP::Lite Not returning expected results

[Ovid]

I used the program stubmaker.pl that's distributed with SOAP::Lite to create an SOAP client and I can't seem to retrieve the data correctly. The relative snippet of code is this:

    my $som = $self
        ->endpoint($method{endpoint})
        ->uri($method{uri})
        ->on_action( sub { qq/"$method{soapaction}"/ } )
        ->call($method => map { @templates ? shift(@templates)->value(
+$_) : $_ } @_);
    return $som unless UNIVERSAL::isa($som => 'SOAP::SOM');
    return wantarray
        ? $som->paramsall
        : $som->result;

I used Data::Dumper on the SOAP::SOM ($som) object that was returned and buried deep in the data structure is the data that I need. $self->call is returning a SOAP::SOM object and I'm calling it in list context, so it's the $som->paramsall method which is failing. It returns the following data structure:

  @movies = (
    {
      'Movies' => {
        'Movie' => ''
      }
    }
  );

The XML returned by the SOAP call resembles the following (with many thousands of movies cut out and this is actually returned on one line.)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope
    xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <soap:Body>
    <GetMoviesResponse xmlns="http://www.dtmovies.com/websvcs/">
      <GetMoviesResult>
        <Movies xmlns="">
          <Movie Title="10 Things I Hate About You" FilmID="474" />
          <Movie Title="102 Dalmatians" FilmID="912" />
          <Movie Title="13 Going on 30" FilmID="1496" />
          <Movie Title="15 Minutes" FilmID="966" />
        </Movies>
      </GetMoviesResult>
    </GetMoviesResponse>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Do you see anything wrong with the above? Would providing a snippet of the (long) data structure in $som be useful? Should I just run my head through a meat grinder instead? Inquiring minds want to know.

I'm using SOAP::Lite version 0.60.

Cross-posted to the SOAP::Lite mailing list.

Update: I've developed a workaround by setting $self->outputxml(1) and using XML::Simple to parse the data. I'd rather not do that but at least it works.

[rdfield]

I've had lots of problems with SOAP::Lite 0.60 screwing up the representation of "complex" data structures, and have reverted to 0.55.

For example, say my SOAP server returns a value containing an empty hash,  return {};, in 0.60 the client sees '' (the empty string), whereas 0.55 returns {} as expected.

[PodMaster]

What would've been useful is a runnable snippet, something like

use SOAP::Lite;
use strict;
use warnings;

my $sd = new SOAP::Deserializer();
my $xml = do { local $_=<<'__THE__SOAP__';s/^\s+//;s/\s+$//;$_ };
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<soap:Envelope
    xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <soap:Body>
    <GetMoviesResponse xmlns="http://www.dtmovies.com/websvcs/">
      <GetMoviesResult>
        <Movies xmlns="">
          <Movie Title="10 Things I Hate About You" FilmID="474" />
          <Movie Title="102 Dalmatians" FilmID="912" />
          <Movie Title="13 Going on 30" FilmID="1496" />
          <Movie Title="15 Minutes" FilmID="966" />
        </Movies>
      </GetMoviesResult>
    </GetMoviesResponse>
  </soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
__THE__SOAP__


my $som = $sd->deserialize($xml);
use Data::Dumper;
$Data::Dumper::Indent=1;
#print Dumper( $sp, $parsed ),$/;
#warn Dumper( $som ),$/;
warn "$_ => ", Dumper( $som->$_() ),$/ for qw[ paramsall result ];
#  root envelope header headers body fault method result paramsin para
+msout ];

__END__
paramsall => $VAR1 = {
  'Movies' => {
    'Movie' => ''
  }
};

result => $VAR1 = {
  'Movies' => {
    'Movie' => ''
  }
};

It looks to me like a bug in SOAP::Lite, in particular in its XPATH implementation (sub SOAP::SOM::valueof ...).
If     paramsall => '/Envelope/Body/[1]/[>0]', is correct, SOAP::Lite doesn't do the right thing.

[SpanishInquisition]

Perhaps OT, but a few observations on SOAP::Lite.

(a) The version of SOAP isn't up to date with the latest SOAP design-by-committee-evil-standard, so it doesn't work with a lot of SOAP implementations. It would be nice if SOAP::Lite would support multiple SOAP versions.

(b) A lot of times the SOAP you get is kind of fugly, so it doesn't work there either. Plus, complicated SOAP leads to really complicated code, and I don't like SOAP making my code too complicated.

I ended up parsing Soap with XML::Simple and sending requessts with XML created as strings by a functioanl-programming technique and trasmitted by LWP. So, anyhow, roll your own SOAP on a rope... the XML generation by functions was really really awesome and basically allowed you to write xml like...

$response = $Soapy->send($server,$resource,$meth_name,
   xml( 
      xml_foo(
         xml_zorp('state',3),
         xml_gluz('foobar',$alpha),
      ),
      xml_ooooog(72,36,48,'hike'),
   ),
);

Very lispish. Reading that was much easier than reading all of the "ac:" and "as:" stuff once I was done with the SOAP generator engine. Unfortunately, as it was done within the confines of corporate America, I can't release Soapy.pm -- but I wish I could.